Cristina to Prime Minister Cameron: “Give peace a chance”

Télam. National News Agency of Argentina. Feb. 8, 2012. President Cristina Fernández announced on Tuesday night that Argentina will accuse Great Britain before the U.N. Security Council and General Assembly of “militarizing again the South Atlantic” and urged its Prime Minister David Cameron to “give peace a chance”, by sitting to negotiate on the Malvinas Islands, as informed by Télam.

The President addressed a meeting attended for the first time by opposition leaders and lawmakers, together with Government officials, Ministers, provincial Governors, mayors, business and labor leaders, Malvinas War veterans and enthusiastic youth militants, who packed the Government House’s Hall of Bicentennial Latin American Patriots. It was decorated with a Malvinas Islands map that had an Argentine flag in its centre, placed behind the podium from where she addressed the attendees.

Cristina said that she has instructed Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman to make a presentation before the United Nations’ bodies accusing Britain of militarizing the Malvinas area, by sending there a powerful modern battleship and also a royal heir in full military uniform”.

She also announced that on June 14 “we are going to appear before the U.N. Decolonization Committee to present our claim over the islands, a demand that has the support of all the Argentine population and of the Latin American people”.

“Malvinas has ceased to be only an Argentine concern to become a Latin American and regional cause. That has been one of our most important accomplishments”, she said.

“Nobody must expect from us gestures outside the fields of politics and diplomacy, because we have gone through a lot the consequences of violence in our own country”, Cristina stated, on referring to how Argentina will conduct its campaign to recover the South Atlantic islands.

Prior to her speech, Cristina had signed an executive decree “lifting the military and political secret” that the dictatorship had imposed back in 1982 on the report on the performance during the Malvinas War of the Armed services and its commanders, produced by a special committee headed by the late Lt. General Benjamín Rattenbach. One of his sons, Augusto Rattenbach, a retired Army Colonel, was sitting beside the President.

The President explained that the Rattenbach Report was being made public because it involved a matter of State policy that involves the concept of democracy and sovereignty.

Cristina then made an appeal to British Prime Minister Cameron “to give peace a chance, at least once give an opportunity to peace and not to war”. Then, she added that “it is an anachronism to keep having colonies in the XXI century. Only 16 colonial situations remain in the world, and ten of them belong to Britain”.

On referring to her accusation to Britain for militarizing the South Atlantic, the President explained that “we cannot interpret in a different way the presence of a destroyer that accompanies the visit of a royal heir in full military uniform”.

Cristina requested “the support of all the political parties to keep presenting our claim of sovereignty before the United Nations”. Then she thanked the presence of opposition legislators and leaders in the ceremony and said that “it makes her feel more than ever before that she is the President of all the 40 million Argentines, because the presence of so many sectors shows that we are facing a matter of State, of national interest”.

The President warned that Britain “is pillaging our natural resources, like fishing and oil” in a way that “could end up in an ecological disaster because there is no control”.

“We should bear in mind that the coming battles will be for the natural resources and our region is one of the richest and with the most potentiality”, she said.